News - The Art of the Prank

June 16, 2017December 15, 2023

First Responders to BS: Fact-Checkers are Heroes for Our Times

Like at Snopes, the team at Politifact has its work cut out for it. Here’s a rousing rant from editor Aaron Sharockman.

“PolitiFact: The Power of Fact Checking in a Post-Truth World”
by Aaron Sharockman
Tampa Bay Times
June 7, 2017
Here’s a quick test: Think about how Donald Trump announced he was running for president. Now, do the same for Hillary Clinton.

I think most of you probably got one but not the other. We remember Trump and his wife Melania gliding down the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015. And we remember some of the things Trump said that day.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you,” Trump said. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

As for Clinton? Continue reading “First Responders to BS: Fact-Checkers are Heroes for Our Times”

September 10, 2014December 15, 2023

Pessimistic Weather Forecast is a Little Too Pessimistic

Here’s a brief look at how the typical hoax-news-story sausage is made, from Emerson Dameron:

As an aspiring humor writer, I always keep one eye open for new sites that might be interested in running my stuff. A few years ago – neatly coinciding with the explosion of Twitter, reddit, Facebook, and other mass social-sharing sites – I began to notice more and more sites soliciting “satirical” news stories that were just slightly off. Not funny like The Onion, but close enough to the news to be somewhat believable yet false enough to make the people who spread them look like idiots.

When these sites get scads of clicks from a “hoax” story, they can have it both ways. They’ve significantly widened their audience, but can still explain that they were clearly just joshing.

That’s worth keeping very much in mind.

Meteorologists-Predict-Record-Shattering-Snowfalls-Coming-Soon-Bread-Milk-Prices-Expected-To-Soar- — via EmpireNews.net

Popular map suggesting ‘record-shattering snowfall’ is a hoax
by Scott Dance
The Baltimore Sun
September 9, 2014

A winter forecast map that is going viral and suggests above-normal snowfall for most of the country – and “well above-normal” snow for the mid-Atlantic and New England – comes from a satire website.

The story has been shared widely across social media, carrying the headline “Meteorologists Predict Record-Shattering Snowfall Coming Soon.” The accompanying map forecasts an unusually snowy winter for about two-thirds of the country, and a corridor of even heavier snow from Virginia to Maine. Read more…

June 6, 2011December 15, 2023

Sarah Palin’s Paul Revere Revisionism

Sarah Palin Supporters Attempted To Edit Wikipedia Page On Paul Revere
Huffington Post
June 6, 2011

Last week, Sarah Palin told a local news station in Boston that Paul Revere “warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms.” As the news media rushed to point out that Revere was, in fact, warning the American colonists, not the British, Palin’s supporters apparently attempted to update the Wikipedia entry on Revere in order to make the facts conform to Palin’s version of history.

According to the revision history on the Wikipedia page, Palin supports attempted to add the line in italics below:

Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him (“The British are coming!”), largely because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British army patrols; also, most colonial residents at the time considered themselves British as they were all legally British subjects.

That revision was deleted with the explanation “content not backed by a reliable sources [sic] (it was sarah palin interview videos).” Continue reading “Sarah Palin’s Paul Revere Revisionism”